Person talk:Joseph Lockwood (8)

An interesting day of researching [5 April 2024]

I was introduced to this family through the son, Wilson Lockwood (born 1834), who married a woman from another family I had been researching. Looking through Wilson's family in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, as listed by another researcher, I noticed a number of unusual facts. The enumerator in 1841 had followed the guidelines and had given the ages of those over fifteen rounded down to the nearest five years. The father, Joseph, was aged 50, and his wife, Nancy, was 60. The two oldest children were 25 and 20. In 1851 with the ages expressed more acurately, Joseph was a widower, aged 64, and the eldest son was no longer with the family. But that gave an age difference of 18 years between daughter Sally, now aged 38, and her nearest sibling at home.

On inspecting the manuscript image of the 1841 census I began to wonder if Nancy's age was really 60. It could have been 50 or even 40. If it was really 40, the automatic warning from WeRelate" that the four youngest children were born when their mother was over 50 would go away. Maybe Joseph had married twice.

I then went to "FreeBMD Death listings" and found two deaths for Nancy Lockwood in the 1840s and compared them with the dates of burials in the church records. The burial notice in 1844 stated that Nancy Lockwood had been 44 when she died and she had lived at Park Nook in Cartworth, the address given for the family in both the 1841 and 1851 censuses. She was definitely Joseph's second wife.

Nancy had not been given a maiden name in the original list, so this was my next question. In Ancestry's file "West Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1813-1935", I found Joseph Lockwood and Nancy Heap (botp) marrying at Kirkburton on 27 Oct 1825. The form did not require the age or marital status of the bride and groom to be given. In the Baptisms files I found records for both Joseph Lockwood and Nancy Heap, born 1787 and 1801 respectively. Nancy's birthdate was exactly 44 years before her death date!

That left me wondering who Joseph Lockwood's first wife was. I decided the couple must have been around the same age and they would not have married much before they were 20. Another guide was that Sally was born around 1813. In the file for the years up to 1812 I found Joseph Lockwood marrying Nancy Turner in Kirkburton in 1805. Joseph certainly had a thing about girls named Nancy! I did not find any other possibilities. I have been checking through the Lockwood baptisms in the decade 1813-1823. As yet I haven't found any more children for Joseph Lockwood.--Goldenoldie 14:22, 5 April 2024 (UTC)